New initiative helps enhance the resilience of social impact businesses

VOV.VN - The UN Development Program (UNDP), the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), and the Embassy of Canada to Vietnam have launched a project to enhance the resilience of social impact businesses and contribute to reducing the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable groups.

The “Leveraging Vietnam’s Social Impact Business Ecosystem in Response to COVID-19” (ISEE-COVID) project, will be implemented in three years with a total budget of 3.1 million Canadian dollars mainly funded by the Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and some correspondent fund from UNDP and the Government of Vietnam.

Social impact businesses (SIBs) are organizations that have both business activities and a commitment to positively impacting society/environment as central tenets of their strategic operations. Balancing social/environmental aims with a commercial model allows them to sustainably solve social and environmental challenges.

Examples of SIBs are social enterprises; social impact start-ups; inclusive businesses; and cooperatives where most members are vulnerable people. UNDP’s study in collaboration with the National Economic University and University of Northampton shows that 99% of SIBs employ female staff, while 74% have people from marginalized groups in their workforce. A typical SIB is micro-sized in personnel and revenue and 41% of SIBs’ leaders are female.

The project will apply an ecosystem approach to tackle the inter-connected and systemic challenges that SIBs face. It will improve the capacity of SIBs themselves; build the capacity of and coordination between SIB intermediaries; and strengthen government policy making capacities for enabling SIBs.

“Social impact businesses provide incredible value to vulnerable communities in Vietnam in response to COVID-19, as well as contribute to sustainable and inclusive economic development. In partnership with UNDP Vietnam and the Ministry of Planning and Investment, our shared ambition is to improve the effectiveness of SIBs, especially those led by women, as a means to address the social and gendered impact of COVID-19 as well as to strengthen the SIB regulatory environment in order to enhance their social and environmental contributions in the communities they serve", Canada Ambassador Paul Deborah said in her opening remarks.

The project prioritizes support to SIBs in four key industries heavily impacted by COVID-19, namely sustainable agriculture, sustainable tourism, education, and health. These are also areas with a large female workforce and many SIBs offering innovative solutions dedicated to reducing poverty rates among women and girls.

At the project’s launch, Tran Duy Dong, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment said that with the commitment to always be at the forefront of innovation and reform, and at the same time, ensure effective social protection work to leave no one behind, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has implemented many practical programs and activities to support vulnerable groups, such as the program ‘For the community development’, the initiative: ‘White Cane for the Blind in Vietnam’, and sponsored a number of vulnerable groups, including social impact businesses like KymViet, Vun Art, Tam Ngoc Cooperative, etc.

"The Ministry of Planning and Investment highly appreciates the partnership and support from the Government of Canada, UNDP in launching the project: ‘Leveraging Vietnam’s Social Impact Business Ecosystem in Response to COVID-19’. It is expected that the project will contribute to improving the capacity of SIBs, thus helping vulnerable groups including women, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities; build capacity and strengthen coordination among intermediaries to support social impact businesses; strengthen the capacity of state agencies in policy formulation and implementation, thus creating favorable conditions for the development of social impact businesses”, said the minister.

The new project is expected to support 300 SIBs with seed funding and market access, thus creating potentially 9,000 jobs for vulnerable people. 90 SIBs will benefit from revenue increases and develop plans to cope with COVID-19 and future shocks. 105 SIBs will have business plans that integrate gender and/or environment and climate change.

Meanwhile, at least four gender responsive policies are expected to be developed or revised. An impact business network of at least 100 members would be established. The network would support an impact measurement and management system pilot for 5-10 SIBs.

UNDP Resident Representative Caitlin Wiesen highlighted the timeliness of the project in supporting vulnerable groups and businesses in overcoming the prolonged and damaging impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. She emphasized to crucial role of the private sector in general, and social impact businesses in particular, in recovering and building forward better.

“I strongly believe that the shared development vision, the commitment of innovation-enabling government, combined with the creativity and innovations of social impact business ecosystem stakeholders will strengthen the resilience and accelerate the development of SIBs in Vietnam,” she noted.

 “This in turn is foundational to leaving no one behind and achieving the SDGs,” she said.

Mời quý độc giả theo dõi VOV.VN trên